The Steps Afield and/or Road Path Journeys, by any other name, are a list of highways or other roads that provides a traverse from one place to another, but not only just a passage between locations, but one with a pleasant variety of vistas and other intriguing waysides.

Many of the routes that have already been established, have been done so either by an act of the government, by previous tourism or by commercial interests to acquire customers. Still, because there are so many sites to see across the North American continent, the number of these road path journeys is great. Thus, the following list is just a start in the efforts to locate and drive those road paths worthy of travel by a modern wayƒarer.

The people of the country know as the United States of America have long been those who had readily pioneered roadways in their quest for what each individual could call their homeland. Click this link for the Earliest US Roadpaths.

A National Scenic Byway (NSB) is a road recognized by the United States Department of Transportation that has at least one of the six qualifying intrinsic qualities which qualities are: archeological, cultural, historic, natural, recreational, and scenic. This program to recognize this type of roadway was established in 1991 by Congress for the purpose to preserve and protect the national scenic but often not so traveled roads and in doing so, promote tourism and economic development. This program was considered to be of the same level or standard as that of the establishment of the National Parks Services.

Furthermore, if any one of these roadpaths which qualify to be a NSB has qualified with two or more of the six intrinsic qualifying qualities, then this designated NSB roadpaths would also qualify and be upgraded to an All American Road (AAR), which is the highest distinction a roadpath can claim.

Of all the roadpaths designated National Scenic Byways, there are 37 which are designated as All American Roads.

The designation as a National Scenic Byway means they have features that do not exist elsewhere in the United States and are unique and important enough to be tourist destinations unto themselves. Also, these roadpaths must be considered to be a destination location unto itself which is in fact the reason for traveling the roadpath.

As of January 2021, there are 184 National Scenic Byways located in 48 states, in all but Hawaii and Texas.

To apply for a national scenic byway designation, a roadpath must first be distinguished as a state, tribal or federal agency scenic byway, after which the state where it is located must apply for the national program through their state department of transportation (DOT). There are state scenic byways programs in every state.

The Federal Scenic Routes (FSR) are roadpaths (and in a few cases, footpaths) which travels through areas of cultural, natural, recreational or scenic beauty and often passes by locations with viewpoints. These are those roadpaths designated as scenic routes by one of the several federal agencies including: Bureau of Land Maintenance (BLM), Corp of Engineers (CE), National Forest (NF), National Parks Services (NP) and others.

Further, these roadpaths are particularly designated roads which are used specifically as: 1a. Car Touring Roads (hard surface-CTRA); 1b. Car Tourning Roads (gravel-dirt-CTRB); 2. High Clearance Vehicle Roads (HCVR); 3. 4-Wheel drive Vehicle Roads (4WVR); or 4. ATV-dirt bike-snowmobile Trails (ATVT).

The State Scenic Routes (SSR) are different specially designated roads or waterways that travels through an area of cultural, historical, natural recreational or scenic beauty and often passes by scenic viewpoints, and is usually designated as such by a state DOT.

State Heritage Route or State Historic Route (SHR) are roadpaths with significant cultural, historic, natural or scenic value, and/or were former main roadpaths but have since been designated as such after the bulk of the main traffic has bypassed the route, and include: the Lincoln Highway and Route 66 Highway.

State Multi-modal Route (SMR) include some of the state routes, such as Great West Way, which are multi-modal in their use, meaning that the route provides a mix of transportation types, including: bicycle path, foot path, railway, roadway, and, or waterway.

State Scenic Route (SSR) includes: Scenic Byway (SB), Scenic Highway (SH), Scenic Route (SR) are roadpaths which may be ones used by local citizenry in areas of unique or exceptional natural beauty, such as a Lake District.

State Tourist Route (STR) includes: Tourist Drive (TD), Tourist Route (TR) and Holiday Route (HR) are roadpaths which are marketed as being particularly suited for tourists and are often marked or promoted with Waymark signs and advertising signs. Some tourist highways such as the Blue Ridge Parkway were built particularly for tourism purposes.

A Personal Scenic Route (PSR) is one that is primarily personal in nature, a road paths traveled by one or more of the wayƒarers listed within the section of the The Wayƒarers Passage.

This journey level page will examine some of the Roadpath Journeys available today.

Blue Ridge Parkway, Total Distance: 469 Miles

Bear Tooth Highway, Total Distance: 102

Inland Desert Route, (US 395) Total Distance: 1318 miles

Los Caminos Reales Historical Trails, Total Distance: 2600 miles

Natchez Trace Parkway, Total Distance: 444 miles

National Road

Northern Tier Route, Total Distance: 4000 miles

Santa Fe National Historic Trail, Total Distance: 1200

Volcanic Legacy Scenic Byway, Total Distance: 500

West Coast Scenic Route, Total Distance: 1750 miles

Dixie Highway, (Miami to Chicago)

Dixie Overland Highway, US 80 and US 90 (Los Angeles to Miami, Florida)

Lee Highway Washington (DC to San Diego, California)

Lincoln Highway National Historic Route

Meridian Highway (Winnipeg, Canada, to Laredo, Texas)

National Old Trails Road (Baltimore, Maryland, to Los Angeles, California)

National Park to Park Highway (Loop route linking 12 western National Parks)

Old Spanish Trail Auto Route US 90 (Jacksonville Florida to San Diego, California)

Pikes Peak Ocean to Ocean Highway, 3324 miles (New York, New York to Los Angeles, California)

Victory Highway (New York City to San Francisco)

Yellowstone Trail (Boston, Massachusetts, to Seattle, Washington).

Definition: A highway by name only, an auto trail that transverses the United States that is created by an organization in order to promote travel and tourism along their particular roadpath route, and never does the organization that created the Named Highway ever do any construction or maintenance upon that roadpath.

The Named Highways, also known as Named Trails were a product of the pioneer days of auto travel before the government took any interest in interstate roads. Still, during these early days of motor cars, most long distance travel, even by the most avid advocate of auto travel, took place in the comfort of the National railroads. Although named trails can be traced to the 1890s, the movement began in earnest during the early 1910s, with the National Old Trails Road, Dixie Overland Highway, Jackson Highway, Lee Highway, Lincoln Highway, Old Spanish Trail, Pikes Peak Highway, Victory Highway, Yellowstone Trail and many, many others.

Often, when a Named Highway was created, those who did so formed an association, selected the route over existing roads (even those that were unimproved), gave the route a colorful name often to memorialize some event and then began to promote the improvement and use of the roadpath by publishing trail guides, newsletters and even holding annual conventions. Then the association would route the traffic through only the dues paying townships and only in front of the dues paying businesses.

As early as 1919, the US Bureau of Public Roads (BPR) had serious misgivings about the Named Highway movement. One memorandum directed to the BPR stated about the associations who would promoted their own Named Highways, "The associations conduct a propaganda, quite usually referring to their projects as national roads of importance... associating their routes officially with Government undertakings in such a way as to lead citizens to believe that the roads ...were actually proposed by the Federal Government ...constructed by the Federal Government... handled by the Federal Government, and etc."

By 1920, with trail associations having over 250 different named highway routes, highway officials realized that Named Highways, even while their numbers began to swell, had little or no usefulness.

Questions began to be raised about the intentions of the promoters, whether they really had public interest in mind or were just lining their own pocket with profits.

In 1925, the Joint Board of Interstate Highway worked to form a national numbering system so as to define and organize all the many roads. After several meetings, and feedback from the states, the US Highway System was approved on 11 November 1926 and then routes were named, signs were created and installed.

U.S. Routes in the contiguous United States follow a grid pattern, in which odd-numbered routes run generally north to south and even-numbered routes run generally east to west, though three-digit spur routes can be either.

Usually, one-digit and two-digit routes are major routes, and three-digit routes are numbered as shorter spur routes from a main route. Odd numbers generally increase from east to west; U.S. Route 1 (US 1) follows the Atlantic Coast and US 101 follows the Pacific Coast. (US 101 is one of the many exceptions to the standard numbering grid. This highway must be thought of as having its first digit as 10, and that it is a main route on its own and not a spur leading off of US Route 1.)

Even numbers tend to increase from north to south; US 2 closely follows the Canadian border, and US 98 hugs the Gulf Coast. The longest routes connecting major cities are generally two-digit that are numbered to end in a 1 or a 0, such as east-west US 80 and north-south US 81.

However, extensions and truncations have made this distinction largely meaningless. These guidelines are very rough, and exceptions to all of the basic numbering rules exist.

This federal numbered highway system continued until 1956 when then President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed legislation for the new Interstate Highway system.

When the new Interstate system came into effect, the numbering grid for the new system was established as intentionally opposite from the US Highway grid insofar as the direction the route numbers increase. Interstate Highway numbers increase from west-to-east and south-to-north, to keep identically numbered routes geographically apart in order to keep them from being confused with one another,[8] and it omits 50 and 60 which would potentially conflict with US 50 and US 60

Natchez Trace Parkway, AAR.

Selma to Montgomery March Byway, AAR.

Alabama′s Coastal Connection, NSB.

Talladega Scenic Drive, NSB.

Appalachian Highland Scenic Byway, SSB.

Barbour County Governors Trail, SSB.

Black Belt Nature and Heritage Trail, SSB.

Black Warrior River Scenic Byway, SSB.

Leeds Stagecoach Route, SSB.

Lookout Mountain Parkway, SSB.

Tensaw Parkway, SSB.

Alaska Marine Highway, AAR.

Seward Highway, AAR.

Glen Highway, NSB.

Haines Highway-Valley of the Eagles, NSB.

The George Parks Highway Scenic Byway, NSB.

Alaska Railroad Scenic Byway, SSB.

Copper River Highway, SSB.

Dalton Highway, SSB.

Kachemak Bay Route, SSB.

Prince of Wales Island Road, SSB.

Richardson Highway, SSB.

Steese Highway, SSB.

Sterling Highway, SSB.

Taylor & Top of the World Highway, SSB.

Walden Point Road, SSB.

Historic US Route 66, AAR. (AZ Distance: 401 miles)

Red Rock Scenic Byway, AAR. (SH 179), 34.6904224, -111.7439615

Coronado Trail Scenic Byway, NSB.

Kaibab Plateau-North Rim Byway, NSB.

Sky Island Parkway (Catalina Highway), NSB.

Black Hills Backcountry Byway, FSB-BLM-CRT (US 191)

Harquahala Mountain Backcountry Byway, FSB-BLM-4WR

Rug Road, FSB-BLM-4WR

Apache Trail Historic Road, SSB.

Copper Corridor Scenic Road, SSB.

Desert to Tall Pines Scenic Road, SSB.

Dine Tah Scenic Road, SSB.

Dry Creek Scenic Road, SSB.

El Camino Real de Alto California, SHR. AZ Distance: 425 miles

Fredonia-Vermillion Cliffs, SSB.

Gila-Pinal Scenic Road, SSB.

Jerome-Clarkdale Cottonwd, SSB.

Joshua Forest Scenic Road, SSB.

Kayenta-Monument Valley, SSB.

Mingus Mountains, SSB.

Naat′tsis′aan-Navajo Mountain Scenic Road, SSB

Organ Pipe Cactus, SSB.

Patagonia-Sonoita, SSB.

San Francisco Peaks, SSB.

Sedona-Oak Creek Canyon, SSB.

Swift Trail Parkway, SSB.

Tse′nikani-Flat Mesa Rock, SSB.

White Mountain Scenic Road, SSB.

White River Scenic Road, SSB.

Great River Road, AAR. Arkansas Distance: 292 miles

Crowley′s Ridge Parkway, NSB. (SH 1, 163, 141, US 62)

Talimena Scenic Byway NSB. Total AR-OK Distance: 54 miles

Arkansas Scenic 7 byway, SSB.

Boston Mountains Scenic Loop, SSB.

Ozark Highlands Scenic Byway, SSB.

Interstate 530, SSB.

Mount Magazine Scenic Byway, SSB.

Pig Trail Scenic Byway, SSB.

Sylamore Scenic Byway, SSB.

West-Northwest Scenic Byway, SSB.

Big Sur Coast Highway, AAR.

San Luis Obispo North Coast Scenic Byway, AAR.

Volcanic Legacy Scenic Byway, AAR. California Distance 360 miles

Arroyo Seco Parkway (SH 110), NSB.

Death Valley Scenic Byway, (SH 190) NSB.

Ebbetts Pass Highway, NSB.

Tioga Road-Big Oak Flat Road, NSB.

Historic US Route 66, NSB. (Needles to Barstow) CA Distance: 314 miles)

El Camino Real de Alto California, CA Distance: 675 miles

Ancient Bristlecone Scenic Byway, SSB. (White Mountains Road)

Angeles Crest Scenic Byway, SSB. (SH 2)

Bigfoot Scenic Byway, SSB. (SH 96)

Carson Pass Scenic Byway, SSB. (SH 88)

Death Valley Scenic Byway, SSB. (SH 190

Ebbetts Pass Scenic Byway, SSB. (SH )

Emigrant Trail SSB. (SH 139 and SH 299 )

Feather River Scenic River, SSB. (SH 70)

Kings Canyon Scenic Byway, SSB. (SH 180)

Lassen Scenic Byway, SSB. (SH 89, SH 36, SH 147, SR 44)

Lee Vining Canyon Scenic Byway, SSB. (SH 120)

Jacinto Reyes Scenic Byway, SSB. (SH 33, Maricopa Highway)

Pacific Coast Highway, SSB. (SH 1)

Palms to Pines Scenic Byway, SSB. (SH 74)

Parker Dam Road, SSB. (Colorado River)

Ramona Expressway, SSB. (SH 79) (connects to SH 74)

Redwood Highway, SSB. (US 101)

Rim of the World Scenic Byway, SSB. (SH 18, SH 38)

River Road, SSB. (SH 160)

San Marcos Pass Road, SSB. (SH 154)

Skyline Boulevard, SSB. (SH 35)

Trinity Scenic Byway, SSB. (SH 299)

Yuba-Donner Scenic Byway, SSB.

Inland Desert Route Southern CA Section, US 395, S CA Distance: 354 miles

Inland Desert Route Northern CA Section, US 395, N CA Distance: 193 miles

West Coast Scenic Route, CA. Distance: 935 miles

San Juan Skyway Scenic Highway, AAR. CO Distance: 236 miles

Trail Ridge Road, AAR. CO Distance: 48 miles

Colorado River Headwaters, NSB.

Dinosaur Diamond Prehistoric Highway, NSB (US 40, SH 64, 139, US6, IH70).

Frontier Pathways Scenic Byway, NSB.

Gold Belt Tour Scenic Byway, NSB.

Grand Mesa Scenic Byway, NSB.

Highway of Legends, NSB.

Lariat Loop Scenic Byway, NSB.

Santa Fe Trail, NSB. CO Distance: 188 miles

Silver Thread, NSB.

Top of the Rockies, NSB.

Trail of the Ancients, NSB. (SH 41, 145, 184, US 160, 491)

Alpine Loup, SSB.

Cache la Pudre-North Park, SSB. (SH 14)